


13

by sweetNsimple



Series: "Morally and Legally Unacceptable Histories" ~ Nanao-chan [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assisted Suicide, Brief mentioning of Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Canon Disabled Character, Character Death, Deaf Clint Barton, Everyone is a non-traditional student, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Romance, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 09:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10637196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: “A little worse for wear, aren’t you?” Tony commented, smiling despite himself.Steve smiled back.  “Only a little bit.  We didn’t die easy.”





	

What fucked up idiots would think it was a good idea to go into a hotel, abandoned after multiple dangerous accidents, that had been remodeled from a closed down asylum where a known serial killer had taken thirteen lives before herself committing suicide?

Tony and his two fucking idiot husbands and two of their fucking idiot friends, that’s the fuck who.

And it had all started out so well.  Of the eight of them that were at the bar before it all came up, five were pretty tipsy.  Not Tony, though – Tony was thumbing his six month sobriety coin while his two husbands tried to outdrink Thor, the international non-traditional student from Iceland whose real name wasn’t Thor, but who cared, right?  Either way, the guy could drink, and he happily and with great humor took to the challenge of guzzling alcohol like it was oxygen.  Clint Barton, their friend who was majoring in special education with a minor in ASL (which was too easy for him because, _hello_ , he was deaf!), tried to take them all on and was glassy eyed in a pitifully short time.  His fiancé, Phil, a business major and Army vet like Steve and Bucky, and Bruce, their mousy physics major with the too big clothes and the tiny, timid smiles, were the only two people besides Tony who weren’t at least halfway to a high buzz by two in the morning.  Even Nat, who Tony secretly thought was a spy/assassin, was lolling just a bit to the side.  

Even though Tony wished he could have a drink as bad as someone in the desert wanted water, he was still managing to have somewhat of a good time.  Bruce was pressed against his side, a support for him and his shaking hands, while Phil kept a strong arm across his chest like he was physically restraining Tony from making any bad decisions.  Which was fair. 

This was his first time back in a bar since he started Alcoholics Anonymous.  And that had been a long time ago.  He was almost overstimulated.  He still wanted to bite Phil’s hand off, though.

Bucky and Steve, at least, stopped before they could be comfortably drunk and seemed to catch on that Tony wasn’t having a good time.  They took the booth across from Tony and his pillars of strength and reason, holding his hands and looking into his eyes like lovesick, somewhat alcohol-sick, buffoons.

God, Tony loved these idiots.

And then Clint came along and fucked it all up for everyone.

“Look at that,” Clint said, gesturing in the vague direction of the television.  Some sort of news coverage was going on, something about the anniversary of someone’s death.  “That place is haunted!”

“What place?” Tony asked, because any distraction would be appreciated instead of staring at the beer in Clint’s hands. 

“Ah, I have heard of it,” Thor – his real name might have been Don or something, but Tony had never used it in his two years of knowing the guy – said.  “It is the Marvel Suites, yes?  Constructed from what once was the Zola Asylum of the 1940’s where many lost their lives.”

“How do you know all that?” Tony asked. 

“I am also curious,” Phil added, frowning. 

“I have an interest in history,” Thor explained, smiling.

“Local history?” Bruce asked with doubt.

“All history,” Thor stressed.  “We grow from understanding our past.”

“And how did knowing about this asylum turned hotel help you grow?” Bucky asked, fiddling with Tony’s two wedding bands.  He was the smartass of Steve and Tony and Tony loved him for it.

“It did not, but it was fun to learn.” 

“Fun,” Phil repeated, expression blank.  “How many lost their lives?”

“Thirteen.”

“What kind of freak accident caused that?” Clint asked, leaning over the back of the booth to drop his head into the junction of his fiancé’s neck and shoulder.  His words were just a bit slurred.  If his hearing aid wasn’t in, Tony was sure he wouldn’t be able to focus on any of them long enough to read lips.

“Not an accident at all, my friend!” Thor roared, amused for some reason.  “A violent patient committed the murders and then committed suicide.”

“That gives a bad rep for people with mental health issues,” Steve said, grimacing through his buzz.  “People hear stories like that and think everyone who needs resources from a mental health facility is a maniac out to kill their families.”

“You care so much,” Tony crooned.  His hand – the other one, not the one Bucky was fondling – came up to pat Steve’s cheek.  “Don’t ever change, you teddy bear, you.”

Steve tried to glare at him but he was smiling soppily, which ruined the whole effect.

“In this case, people had a reason to be afraid,” Thor reasoned.  “These murders occurred in 1944.  The asylum was shut down shortly after.  Recently, however, the building was reconstructed and turned into a grand and boisterous hotel!”  He waved toward the television where a painter’s rendition of a beautiful hotel in its glory days was showing.  “It was only open for two years before it was also shut down.  There were many accidents that could not be explained, a fair number of them hazardous to the health of the guests.  The last incident involved an elevator cable snapping, sending three people to their death.”

“Creepy,” Nat said.

“Definitely,” Bruce agreed, curled into himself.  He wasn’t into horror.

There was an awkward moment of silence where Tony tried to figure out how to change the subject.

“We should go,” Bucky said.  “Check it out.”

“Or maybe we should not,” Tony countered.  “Because that would be stupid.”

“Why’s that?” Bucky shot back, eyes bright and cheeks flushed.  He raised Tony’s hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles.  “What, doll?  You believe in ghosts?”

“Not a chance,” Tony snapped.

“I believe in ghosts,” Bruce whispered.  “Which makes this an even worse idea.”  But he was too quiet in the hubbub of the bar, meaning that only Tony heard him.

“I believe in ghosts,” Nat said, loud enough that everyone could hear her.  She was tilting to one side of the booth with a steely look on her face.  “I believe that they cannot hurt me unless I allow them to.”  She suddenly stood up straight, which was a feat considering how much Tony had watched her drink.  She barely even swayed and she sounded like she hadn’t drunk at all.  “We’re going.”

“We’re not,” Phil countered, arm coming up and around Clint’s shoulders awkwardly, given that Clint was still leaning over the back of the booth that Phil was sitting in.  It wasn’t until he did that that Tony realized the sawing noise he was barely hearing was Clint snoring.  He was even drooling a bit on Phil’s shoulder.  “I am taking Clint home.  Bruce, I can take you home as well if you want to.”

“Thank you,” Bruce breathed, shoulders dropping with relief.

“Everyone else?” Nat asked, eyebrow shooting up.  _Daring_ anyone else to back out.

“What would we even do when we get there?” Steve asked, ever the strategist.  “Sit in the car and stare?  There is no way we are getting inside and, even if we could, it probably wouldn’t be legal unless they’re giving tours.”

“They are not,” Thor said, shaking his head.  “The building is condemned.”

“So it would definitely be illegal to go inside.  So we would drive a whole hour to look at a building and then drive home.  It’s already after two.  It isn’t even worth it.”

“You know what you sound like?” Bucky purred, grinning with all teeth.  “A _chicken_.”

Which was just not a cool thing to say to Steven Grant Rogers, the man with the plan and retired Army captain.  Steve would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t go to the damn site now.  Tony could see it in how he squared his jaw, taking offense and ready to storm down the building to prove that he wasn’t a damn clucking bird.

And they were both still holding Tony’s hands, Steve with both of his own and Bucky with the one he had left after coming back from war.

“Tony, would you like a ride home?” Phil asked him.

Both of his husbands turned beautiful blue eyes on him.

“Nah,” he said, sighing.  “I’ll go with.  Might be fun, you know?”

Hint: It wasn’t fun.

It wasn’t even boring.

It was a nightmare from Hell and the worst part was that he was going to live to regret all of it.

~::~

They should have just stared at the building from the outside and been ticked off that they wasted so much time to stare at a relatively normal looking building.  But then Bucky tried the front door and…

It was unlocked.

Nat’s eyes glittered.  “We’re going in.”

“Uh, _why_?”  Tony asked, thinking that that was a very dumb idea.

“A splendid idea!” Thor roared at the same time, drowning Tony out.

What the Hell, Thor?

Bucky was grinning like a loon and even Steve looked ready to start an adventure.

“Keep in mind, this is _illegal_ ,” Tony said, hoping to at least get Steve on his side and _away from the goddamned building_.  It worked for all of a moment where Steve hesitated, held back by morals and laws and such.

But then Bucky grinned and said, “Not scared, are ya, doll?”

Which, what the Hell?

“Come on, Steve,” Tony growled.  He grabbed his blonde Brooklyn boy by the hand and pulled him through the door Bucky chivalrously held open for them.  Bucky also not so chivalrously groped Tony’s ass on his way past.  “No, you get _none_ ,” Tony declared.  “For the rest of the day.  Maybe even tomorrow!” 

Bucky didn’t look contrite at all, that fucker.  “Sure, Tony.  Whatever you say.”

“Tony’s right, we shouldn’t be here,” Steve said, pausing in the doorway.  Bucky took the opportunity to pinch his butt and Steve jerked the rest of the way through the entrance.

“Too late,” Bucky purred.  “We’re here.”

Which was a terrible place to be.  Horror movies liked to make it seem like everything just randomly got left behind and that everything was falling apart, but Marvel Suites wasn’t like that.  It was stripped to the walls and floor, with not even a lightbulb in sigh, and the worst of the damage was a thick layer of dust on everything and the discoloration of the wallpaper from sunlight.

Tony was underwhelmed.

“This is great.  Just great.  You know what would have been better?  Going home, getting ready for bed, and then staying up for another three hours watching _Star Trek_.  But, nooo, my husbands are idiots and now we’re here.”

“You did agree to come with us,” Steve pointed out.  “You could have gone with Phil and everyone else.”

Tony gritted his teeth.  “I can’t stay behind while my Brooklyn boys go off to do something stupid without me.”

Bucky kissed his cheek and chuckled.  “True.”

“You three are so in love, it’s disgusting.”  Nat just barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes at them, but Tony felt it was a very close call. 

“I enjoy their interactions,” Thor interjected.  “Their love gives me hope.  Any darkness can be defeated with the faithful guiding lights of devotion and the determination one can only find in a loyal heart.”

“Aw, Fabio,” Tony purred.  “You’re gonna make me blush.”

Nevermind that Thor almost did.  _Almost_. 

“I am very devoted,” Bucky whispered in his ear.

“To what, being a pain in my ass?  We already knew that.”  But Tony leaned against him anyway.

He loved these idiots.

“Huh,” Steve said, looking toward the entrance.  “Bucky, did you close the door?”

“Steve, they automatically close.  That’s how gravity works.  You hold the door open and, when you let it go, it shuts itself.”

Steve reached out and tugged on it.  The door didn’t budge. 

“Oh, Hell no,” Tony hissed.  “We’re leaving.  Thor, break down that door.”  
But Thor just laughed.  “There is no need for concern, my friends.  The doors must automatically lock.”

“From the _inside_?” Tony asked shrilly.

“This place is haunted,” Nat decided without warning.  This did not seem to displease or please her – outwardly, anyway.  Judging by the next words out of her mouth, though, she must have been pretty happy about it.  “Let’s learn more.”

“Steve, Bucky,” Tony said, turning to his boyfriends.  “Break open the door.  Get us out of here.”

“Hold up, doll,” Bucky said, putting a placating hand on Tony’s shoulder.  “Let’s see what happens.”

“What happens is that we are all killed one by one by a malevolent spirit,” Tony hissed.  “Let’s go!”

“Wait, you really believe that?” Steve asked.  “Tony, you’re all about science and how magic isn’t real.  Wouldn’t ghosts classify as magic?”

“My dear Jane would say that magic is science that has not been discovered yet,” Thor said, speaking of his girlfriend who is learning in a different state.  They’re long-distance. 

Tony focused his energy on Steve.  Bucky was still too buzzed to care and too high to reason with.  Steve was the responsible one, though.  Bucky and Tony could both be total asshole idiots, but Steve would still know what to do.  “Babe, get us out of here.  We shouldn’t be here.”

“Tony, you’re the one that pulled me in here.”

“Bucky made me.”

“I did not!”

“Children, please,” Nat said in a drawl.  “Behave yourselves.  We are going to investigate.”

“Steve, please,” Tony said, which made even Bucky pause.  Tony very rarely pleaded.

But Nat and Thor were already leaving, choosing a corridor at random.  Steve looked from them to Tony’s face.  “We can’t leave without them, sweetheart,” Steve said, thumbing at Tony’s cheekbone.  “We have to stick together.”

“So make them come back.  Don’t make us go to them!”

“Maybe we should go,” Bucky decided.  He didn’t look like he wanted to leave, but his hand grasped Tony’s and Tony knew that he always came first – tied with Steve – in Bucky’s eyes.  No matter how much he wanted to explore.

“We have to catch up,” Steve said with regret.  “We can’t make Thor and Natasha leave.  We all know how stubborn they are.”

“Yeah, almost as stubborn as you,” Tony griped, upset and trying not to show just how much.  Yeah, he wanted them to know he wasn’t happy, but not that he was afraid and that he felt betrayed.

He loved them both so much, but they were being such fucking _idiots_.

Steve kissed him very sweetly.  He’d been kind enough to wash up at a gas station on their way to Marvel Suites and to chew almost half a pack of peppermint gum so that he didn’t taste like beer when he was like this with Tony.  Tony searched for the last traces of alcohol to distract himself.  Nothing worked.

He didn’t want to do this, but all of their pride and arrogance was going to make them do it anyway. 

“When we get out of here, I’m ignoring both of you,” he snapped.  _When_ , he had said.  At that point, he had really thought that they were all going to get out alive.

What a fucking loser.

~::~

 It started with Thor.  Some-fucking-how, a six foot two, two hundred pound Norse giant just wandered down a corridor and didn’t make a goddamn peep in the two minutes before Nat realized he was missing.  When they started yelling for him to come out and stop pissing around, there was no answer.

Tony was officially done.  The problem was now, though, that they couldn’t leave until they found Thor.

Nat was looking back toward where they had come from.  “We need to leave.”

“What happened to ‘we need to learn more’?”

“I believed that the dead could not touch us,” Nat explained.  “Now I know I was wrong.  We need to leave.”

“We can’t leave without Thor,” Steve pointed out.

“He’s probably pulling a prank on us, anyway,” Bucky said with a half shrug.  “Steve and I will go looking.  Stay with Tony, Nat?”

She nodded.  “Of course.”

“Or we could all stay together?” Tony pointed out.  “That sounds smart.”

“Thor might come back to this spot, though,” Steve pointed out.  “It would be best for some people to stay behind.”

Tony searched his eyes.  “You really don’t see anything wrong with this, do you?”

“Tony, Thor might not have been acting like it, but he was drunk.  Natasha, Buck, and I?  None of us are completely sober.  Just because Thor’s lost right now doesn’t mean that a – a ghost or something took him.  We’ll be fine.”

Bucky pulled him into a tight hug and a quick kiss.  “We’ll be right back,” he promised.

Fun fact: That was the last time Tony saw his Brooklyn boys alive.

~::~

“What do you want from us?” Nat asked the room at large.  They hadn’t seen Bucky, Steve, or Thor in the past two hours, but they had been followed by strange noises and stranger sights.  A wheelchair had stalked them up three floors – note that none of the elevators were working – and sometimes Tony caught a shadow that moved like a person but that didn’t belong to him or Nat writhing on the wall, caught in a light Tony didn’t know the source of.

He wanted his husbands back so bad.  He’d kill just to see Thor, but he’d cut himself to pieces without painkillers if he could have his Brooklyn boys in his arms safe again. 

Even though they hadn’t had phone service since they entered the building, Tony’s phone started ringing.  He and Nat both stared at the phone in his hand – he had been using the flashlight function – as if it was a living, poisonous creature.

“Answer it,” Nat ordered calmly.

Tony did, feigning the same confidence.  He had a moment to wonder if he should introduce himself before a voice cut through, painfully familiar.

 _“Hey, sweetheart,”_ said Steve’s voice.  Tony almost choked on relief. 

“Steve, where –”

 _“Can you do me a favor, sweetheart?  I need you to die.”_ Steve’s voice asked sweetly.  _“That’s all they want, doll.  They want to see us all die.  It’s just you and Natasha now.  Is that okay, sweetheart?  Dying?  It isn’t so bad.  Bucky and I are here.  Thor is around here somewhere.  Come join us.”_

The phone dropped from Tony’s nerveless fingers.

“Tony?” Nat asked, a sliver of fear finally cracking through her façade.  She had held out for so long.  Tony had almost started to believe that she really felt nothing.

“We’re going to die,” he told her as well as he could with the sudden obstruction in his throat.  His eyes burned.  “That’s all we’re good for.  Dying.”

“Tony, make sense.”

“We’re going to die,” he repeated.  Something hot and wet slithered down his face.  A tear?  When was the last time he cried?  So long ago, he thought.  “Everyone else is already dead.”

Nat cursed a blue streak, turning away from Tony.  Probably to hide whatever emotions were on her face.  Tony didn’t care.  Tony was dealing with his own emotions. 

He was somewhere between heartbroken that his husbands were apparently dead and so fucking fed up with this shit that he wanted to kill them himself.  It was a confusing place to be for him. 

~::~

Nat knew something about ghosts.  Which he should have expected.

“We have to find the item that ties her here and destroy it with fire,” she told him.

“Them,” Tony corrected blankly.  “Steve – over the phone – kept saying _they_ want to see us dead.  Don’t know who _they_ are.”  Then he paused.  “This isn’t something you learned from _Supernatural_ , right?  You have evidence to back this?”

“Do you have any other suggestions?”

First of all, Tony didn’t know that Nat watched _Supernatural_.

Second of all, his suggestion was actually to just die.

He wanted his Brooklyn boys back.  Sad, wasn’t he?

~::~

Even though the place had looked picked clean when they first came in, stuff was suddenly appearing everywhere that should not be there.

“The ghost wants us to find this,” Nat said seriously, picking through a large, dark wood desk that was littered with diagrams of the brain and nervous system.  It was all covered in dust, as if it had always been here.  It hadn’t been.  Nat and he had passed through this room what felt like ages ago but was probably less than an hour ago and had seen none of this.

“Found something,” Nat said, putting two manila folders on the desk.  The top folder said ‘W. Maximoff’ on the tab.  Nat flipped it open.  “I think this is her.  Wanda Maximoff.  She was a patient here in the 1930’s and 40’s.”  She flipped through some of the yellowed pages, pausing every few seconds to read.  “She had a history of violence and making things happen that the doctors could not explain.  Some of the doctors even called her psychic or a witch.”

“Bullshit,” Tony snapped.  He wanted to wrap his arms around himself and scream, but he forced himself to sort through the other things that had randomly appeared.  Most of it was outdated psychology mumbo-jumbo that would get a modern day psychiatrist fired and sued at least a dozen times over.

“You seem to believe in ghosts.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to take a leap of faith and believe in _witches_.”  He snagged the folder directly beneath Wanda’s.  It was tagged ‘P. Maximoff’.  “Huh.”

Nat glanced at him.  “What?”

He showed her the photo inside the file.  It was of a young man with white hair.  The name at the top of his bio was Pietro.  “Wanda had a fraternal twin.”

“Why was he here?” Nat asked, mostly herself. 

Tony answered anyway.  “Well, when two people love each other very much…” He stopped, though, because it wasn’t funny anymore.  _When_ three _people love each other very much…_ “They’ll do anything to stick together,” he finished, hands coming up to fiddle with Bucky and Steve’s dog tags around his neck.  “Absolutely anything.”

“Including murder,” Nat said, glancing over Pietro’s file.  “He killed their mother two months after Wanda was committed.”

“He couldn’t stand being separated from them,” Tony said.  “So he took drastic measures.”

“Tony…”  Her hand covered his, the one fondling his Brooklyn boys’ dog tags.  He jerked back to the present and into Nat’s sad green eyes.  “I am sorry for your loss.”

He bit back a sob.  He couldn’t right now.  He _couldn’t_. 

Without his permission, a tear slipped from his control and trailed down his cheek.  “Let’s get this over with,” he managed to choke out.  “I need to find their bodies.”

“And Thor’s,” Nat added.

Tony nodded.  “And Thor’s.”

He was important too, Tony knew.  A really great guy.  His family would want a body to come home. 

Tony just wanted to find his husbands first.

Tony was the first to pull away.  Nat went back to scavenging through the desk.  One of the drawers snapped open and Nat obligingly investigated.  “Wanda is being frighteningly helpful,” she muttered.  She produced a lighter from the drawer.

“Why would she give us that?” Tony asked.

“To give us false hope and then break us?” Nat guessed.

And the answer was:

Yes.

~::~

They found gasoline in the kitchen and followed Wanda’s bio to her old holding cell.  There were children’s blocks hiding under the ratty thin mattress.  It was too easy, like Wanda had taken them by the hand and led them there herself.

But of course it was too easy.  Nat took one of the building blocks in hand and –

Tony swore there wasn’t another person in the room, but someone bent Nat in half and then twisted her, almost tearing her in half right in front of Tony.  Her eyes, right before the light left them, stared at Tony in shock, as if she had no idea how this could have happened.

Her last words were, “I’m sorry,” and then her head was jerked by unseen hands into an unnatural position.

Her body was dropped carelessly to the floor. 

“Fuck no,” Tony rasped, struggling to breathe.  There was no stopping the tears now.  They flowed whether he wanted them to or not.  He felt lightheaded, nauseous, and like his lungs were on fire.  Why was there no air?  Wow, he felt like he was about to pass out.

“We’ve got to go,” he said to himself.  “We’ve got to go _now_.”  He grabbed Nat’s body by the wrists and hoisted.  They had to bury her.  He couldn’t save her, but he could get her body home.  That would be important to her.  Phil and Clint were her closest family, and they were a family of choice instead of blood.  They would want Nat’s body for – for something, right?  A funeral.  A burial.  A wake?  Fuck if Tony knew, but he just couldn’t –

He couldn’t leave her behind.

“We’re going,” he said, shaking and feeling like acid was traveling up from his innards.  “We’re leaving.”

But he bumped into something.  Nothing should be behind him.

He clenched his jaw so that he wouldn’t scream and turned his head over his shoulder to see.

“Bucky?” He whispered, dropping Nat’s wrists.  “Buckaroo?”

It looked like Bucky.  But he wasn’t – wasn’t responding.  The look in his eyes was cold and unrecognizable.  His skin was so pale it was almost translucent.  His hair had fallen out of his man bun and looked wild and frizzy around his sunken, ashen face.

Even as Tony took all of this in, even as he realized that this vision before him was not the same Bucky he had woken up with the morning before, Tony still didn’t fight when Bucky raised one hand and wrapped it so carefully around his throat.

The barest amount of pressure was applied.

His very own Brooklyn boy was about to kill him. 

“Breathe with me, Tony,” said a voice behind him.  Something else cold and built like a brick wall settled at his back.  Two large, familiar hands rested on his shoulders.  “It will be okay.  It will be over very fast and then we can be together again.”

How were they touching him?  Tony wondered about that.  They were supposed to be incorporeal, right?  But he could feel them physically.  He couldn’t see through them at all.  Were these all ghost tricks?

Bucky’s expression stayed cold and flat as his hand began to squeeze.  Tony stayed willingly against Steve’s chest, trying to force himself not to fight back.  He wanted this.  He wanted his Brooklyn boys.

Everything was getting dark.  Tony’s hands came up to flail at Bucky’s arm, but Steve gently pulled them both back and away, not unlike a lot of the times they three had sex together.  Tony was wheezing now, though, black spots in his vision, and his whole body felt week.

“You’re doing so good.  I’m so proud of you,” he heard from somewhere far off.  Something touched the beads of his Brooklyn boys’ dog tags.  A kiss?  Steve’s kiss?

And then everything suddenly… stopped.

There was a horrible screaming from somewhere in the building, followed by a second more masculine wail.  The twins?  Why?

He must have passed out after that.  When he came to, he was outside of the building in Phil’s van. 

There were police officers and ambulances all around him, being obnoxiously loud.

“What happened?” he whispered, throat feeling raw.  He tried to push himself up anyway.  Were Steve and Bucky okay?

“Natasha did not send me her five o’clock text saying that she had gotten home safely,” Phil explained.  “I came to investigate.”

“Investigate what?” Tony asked, voice cracking.

Phil looked at him from the driver’s seat.  Tony was spread across the back passenger seats.  “Tony, how much do you remember from last night?”

“There was drinking involved, right?  I didn’t break my sobriety, did I?”  
“No, you did not.”  
“Whoo!  That sounds like great news to me.  Why do you look so down?”

“Tony,” Phil began slowly.  “Where are James and Steve?”  
“Well, they’re – ” back at Marvel Suites.  Dead.  And Tony wasn’t with them.

The silence stretched on for minutes.

“You saved my life,” Tony whispered.

“Yes,” Phil answered, even though it hadn’t been a question.

“God, I wish you had just let me die.”

“I know.”

“How did you stop the twins from killing me?”

“I burned the building blocks.”

“You look pretty okay.”  Nat had tried to burn the blocks and had been twisted into a pretzel.  “I didn’t see you there.”  Tony had been standing right in front of the room where the building blocks had been.

“Thor handed them to me.”

“He’s dead.”

“He is,” Phil agreed.  “He asked me to tell Jane that he loved her and that it would honor his memory if she mourned and then loved again in his name.” 

“Everyone’s dead.”

“Not you.”

Tony shrugged and looked away.  “I could have been.”

“Tony, I’m not going to apologize for saving your life.”

“You should.”

~::~

He and Phil had managed to come up with a convincing cover story that had nothing to do with a ghost that may have been a witch while she was alive, haunting an abandoned hotel that used to be an asylum with her fraternal twin brother.  Instead, it involved two serial killers, only one of which Tony had seen (when he was being strangled) and Phil scaring them off by being his capable Army vet-self.  It wasn’t a great cover story, but the dead look in Tony’s eyes and the bruises around his throat, as well as the mess they had apparently found everyone else in, meant that any story was a good story for the authorities.  It was a little bit better than the story where Tony did all of it.  The cops were leaning toward Phil there for awhile, though.

Pretty nerve wracking stuff.  As least Pepper and Rhodey, two of Tony’s best friends who hadn’t been there that night, were there with him in the hospital and in the precinct when they brought him in for questioning.  As soon as Tony was free, though, he gave them both a hug, said he needed some time to himself (which they said they understood, looking just as upset as Tony felt he should be), and got in his car alone.

He went back.

Marvel Suites looked a little under average in the daylight.  Kind of an eyesore, really.  Not good architecture for a hotel.  Tony stood outside for a long time, leaning against his car and staring at the door they had gone through.

“We’re not in there,” said a voice from the backseat of his car, filtering through Tony’s open driver’s seat window.  “Nothing to tie us there but death.”

“Somehow,” Tony remarked, “I kind of got that.”

“Then why are we here?” asked the voice.

“I’m contemplating suicide.”

“You’re too strong for that, Tony,” said a second voice, soft and sad.  Regret.  “You can’t do that for us.”

Tony fingered the dog tags around his neck.  It was so hard to breathe.  “I’d do it for me.”  His face felt hot and wet.  He swallowed thickly, cleared his throat and tried to choke down the emotions overwhelming him.  “We have an anniversary coming up, right?  It’s been like, fifty years since the day we first met.”

“Thirteen years to the day next Saturday,” Steve whispered.  “God, I wanted to throttle you the first time I met you.”

“I was laughing so hard,” Bucky reminisced.  “Can’t even remember what we were fighting about.”

“Something about a quote from a movie,” Steve guessed.  “You were making fun of me at a theater because I wasn’t ‘up to date on the slang’.” 

“You still aren’t,” Tony muttered.  “No one says ‘slang’ anymore.  You’re such a grandpa.”

“You’re married to this grandpa.”

“It was a two-for-one deal.  If I wanted the hot brunette with the really cute ass, I had to saddle up with the dumb blonde too.”

“Watch your mouth,” Steve threatened, but there was an edge of warmth in there.

“He’s got you there, Stevie,” Bucky quipped.

It felt so normal for a moment that, when reality crashed back in, Tony was left feeling like he had been through a natural disaster.  The air was heavy was despair and loss.  Tony never would have thought that he would be able to sense that, but he could now.  Like the space all around him was soaked in tears.  It was ridiculous.  It was agonizing.

“What if I’m dead right now?” he whispered, arms crossed over his chest.  Heart’s beating, but what else was it doing?  He wasn’t alive.  He was existing.  “It would be a mercy killing.”

“You’ll get over us, sweetheart,” Steve said, stumbling over the words like it was difficult for him to say.  Steve and Bucky had always been possessive of him.  Of his time, of his touches, of his attention.  Steve had fought with Rhodey more than once and Bucky and Pepper had an unsaid truce about not looking each other in the eye. 

God, Tony loved his Brooklyn idiots. Even if they were Neanderthals sometimes. 

“Must kill you to say that,” Tony muttered, then cackled at his own joke, unhinged and broken.

“Oh, sweetheart…” 

“We’re sorry,” Bucky suddenly choked out.  “For what we did.  We would never willingly hurt you like that, doll.”

“You shouldn’t have died, then.”

“Not for that – well, yes, for that,” Steve interjected.  “For almost killing you.  We’re sorry that we tried to kill you.”

“I’m sorry that you failed,” Tony snapped. 

There was a long silence from within the car.  No, not a silence – he heard something, like a low hum.  He thought he could almost hear a whispered conversation, but he wasn’t sure.

“If you still feel that way one year from today,” Steve bargained, “then come back here.  We’ll be waiting inside.”

“You’re not going to stay with me?” Tony asked, voice shaking.

“We want you to try and heal.  You can’t do that if we never leave you alone.”

“I’m not prepared for this,” Tony snarled vehemently.  His hands were fists grasping at his sides, holding himself in.  Holding himself together.  “You fuckers promised me _forever_ , and now I’m alone again!  You said forever!  A fucking measly thirteen years isn’t forever, you assholes!  Shit, I can’t believe I ever trusted you not to leave me too.  _You said you’d never leave me_.”

“We didn’t know this would happen, doll!” Bucky snapped back.  He gentled his tone.  “We want forever too.”

Want.  Not wanted. 

They still wanted him. 

“Fuck this,” Tony snapped.  “I’m not waiting a whole year.”  He stepped toward the building.

Four different arms pulled on him and slammed him back against the car door.  The hands held him there, unseen but felt, like tethers.

“One year, sweetheart,” Steve said.  “Just one.  Just try for us, please?”

“We love you,” Bucky added.  “So fucking much.  We’re so sorry, doll.  Just one year and then come back to us.”

“If you want,” Steve interjected quickly.  “Only if you want to.”

The forces holding him back disappeared.

_“We love you.”_

For the first time since pulling up to Marvel Suites, he heard the crickets chirping.  He heard the wind through the grass.  He heard the trees across the street shuffling in the breeze. 

He sobbed once before he pulled himself back under control.  On the other side of the entrance, within the hotel, two blurred figures stood, so painfully familiar to him that he could close his eyes and still know their every feature.  The two figures slowly turned away and disappeared into the hotel.

“I love you too,” Tony whispered.  “And I hate you so fucking much.”

~::~

Tony thought he’d go back the next month and reunite with his Brooklyn boys, but he held off.  He thought he’d go the month after that, but he held off.  He thought he’d go six months after that, but he forced himself to keep going.

He thought he would go the one year anniversary of their deaths, but there was too much to do.  Too much to wrap up.  Tony didn’t go.

He thought the year after that… but he didn’t.

Tony had been twenty-nine when he lost his Brooklyn boys, thirteen years after the first time he saw them in a movie theater watching a film about a jackass flying around in a metal suit.  He was forty-three when he finally drove back up to Marvel Suites. 

Marvel Suites now looked like how a haunted hotel should look: in shambles, stained by time and crumbling.  It had been scheduled for demolition no less than three times, but strange things kept happening to the equipment whenever the crew came in.  No one was ever hurt – of course – but the dynamite wouldn’t blow, or the drills wouldn’t power up, or the vehicles would stall. 

Tony leaned against his car and stared up at it.

When he’d been twenty-six, he had already had three Bachelors and two Masters in engineering and computer sciences.  He’d gone back to college because Bucky and Steve, newly home and there to stay after eight years in the Army, wanted a higher education.  Their psychiatrists had suggested it, to give them more meaning to their lives.  Their PTSD at that point was at a somewhat more manageable level (meaning that fireworks didn’t send them into combat mode where they grabbed Tony and they all hid behind the couch while Steve shouted orders and Bucky clawed at the stump of his left arm, panicking) and Bucky’s physical therapy was progressing along well, a given since Bucky, Tony, and Steve were all three the most stubborn bastards on earth.  Steve and Bucky had taken the suggestion to heart, although weary about what they would find in college.  Bucky had been half-convinced that it wasn’t for him, but he decided that he wanted to get a Bachelors in social work so that he could work with children in shitty situations.  Steve wanted to be an art teacher.  Tony just wanted to be with them.

He’d just gotten his Brooklyn boys back from overseas, could finally talk to them everyday instead of waiting on a phone call, could see them and touch them whenever he wanted.  He wasn’t being separated from them again.  He thought, well, fuck it.  He’d go back to college with them.  Didn’t matter what the major was, but he’d eventually settled on Business just for a good chuckle.  Him, the guy who had turned his father’s failing weapons industry into a leading clean energy and affordable technology competitor – in school for business?  Hilarious.

Him and his Brooklyn boys loved to laugh over Tony’s homework and project assignments.  His professors could never look him directly in the eye without cringing or asking for his advice. 

They’d been having so much fun until _that night_ happened.

Everything around him grew painfully quiet.  The filthy glass of the entrance doorways didn’t let him see in very well, but he still thought he saw two distinct shapes inside.

They disappeared suddenly and he heard a low hum come from inside his car.

“You came back,” a painfully familiar voice said from the passenger seat.  It almost sounded like Steve was crying.  The joy in his voice was overwhelming.  Tony closed his eyes and let himself just listen.  “We weren’t sure…  It’s so hard to keep track of time on the other side.  But it’s felt so much longer than a year.  We thought, maybe…  Maybe you weren’t going to…”

“Damn, you age well,” Bucky’s hoarse voice took over.  “A fucking babe, doll.”

Tony chuckled despite himself.  “You both probably don’t look any different.”

“No,” Steve agreed, sad again.  “No, we… haven’t changed at all.”

“Nothing has changed,” Bucky added.  “We still feel the same.”

They still loved him.

The breath that left him was shaky.  “It took me a lot longer than I thought, to get everything figured out…  I, uh, actually adopted a kid.  Peter Parker.  A great kid.  Smart kid.  You both would love him.”

“Oh,” Bucky whispered, wanton.  Bucky had always wanted kids.  Everyone would think that Steve was the one hellbent on bringing tiny hellions into their home, but it had been Bucky who was determined to adopt someday, when he and Steve were mentally in a better place. 

“Love him already,” Steve teased.

“You’re not here to join us yet, are you?” Bucky asked.

“No, I am.  I really am.”  He laughed, shattered.  “I’m too damn tired to keep doing this.  Peter knows how depressed I am.  I kept it from him for the longest time, but he knows.  He wants me to be happy.  Says that I should have the chance to be as happy as him.  He has a fiancé.  Wade Wilson.  Little fucker, I want to wring his neck, but he treats Petey so good.  I wrapped up everything that needed wrapped up and tidied up the rest.  Everything and everyone is taken care of.”  He played with the two wedding bands on his left hand.  “I’ve been waiting for this.  For a long time now.”

“Go inside, doll,” Bucky whispered, so close to his ear that he swore he felt Bucky lips.  “No more waiting.”

“We’ll open the door for you,” Steve said into his other ear.  “We love you.”

“I love you both too,” Tony said.  Sound returned.  The crickets, the breeze, the shuffling leaves.  Distantly, he could hear traffic.

The front door of the debilitated building propped itself open with a righteous screech of rusted hinges. 

Tony didn’t hesitate.  Not for a second.  He left behind his car, his life with it, and went through the open door.  It shut behind him, leaving him in darkness with crumbling infrastructure and two ghastly pale figures.

“A little worse for wear, aren’t you?” Tony commented, smiling despite himself.

Steve smiled back.  “Only a little bit.  We didn’t die easy.”

It was so wonderful to see Steve smile, even if he looked like death left in a freezer box. 

Bucky pulled Tony into his arms.  It was like a column of air, unlike the last time they had touched.  A freezing cold column of air that held him in place.  Bucky kissed him and it was like his breath caught in his lungs for a moment.  “We’ll make this gentle for you,” Bucky promised.  “Close your eyes, doll.  We’ll take care of the rest.”

“Steve, kiss me,” Tony demanded, unwilling to close his eyes until his other Brooklyn boy kissed him as well.  Steve did with a chuckle.  He was just as cold, just as lifeless, and just as wonderful.

When Steve parted from him, he felt all the tension of the past fourteen years melt away.  More relaxed than he could ever remember being, Tony closed his eyes.

_“We’re all in this together.  Forever.”_

~::~

It took two weeks for the investigation team searching for Tony Stark to find his car.  Going into the building, they found a perfectly preserved body.

It seemed as if Tony had laid himself down on the ground for a nap in his business suit.  With the smile on his still face, some would even say he looked happy.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the movie 'Horror Story' (2013) found on Netflix. I really enjoyed the movie, even though it had its flaws and its bad moments. Most horror movies do, though.
> 
> I put this in the "Morally and Legally Unacceptable Histories" series because Steve and Bucky assist Tony in suicide and because Tony would rather be dead with his ghost husbands than alive. Which I thought made it morally wrong. That is my personal opinion. Also, it is a horror story, which makes it all over wrong. It doesn't feature the dark Steve this series is used to, though, so I understand if there is some confusion.
> 
> ALSO, the gang is made up of non-traditional students, which means that none of them are the typical age. This can because they came back for more education or did not have the opportunity/resources to go when they were younger. I tried not to make that confusing. All in all, they didn't have to be college students, but that was how I originally wrote it and I did not have the energy to take it out.


End file.
